Voters have more than two alternatives

June 10, 2006

I noticed in the May 23 Tribune it was reported the Democrats have named Joe Pearson as their candidate for Indiana secretary of state.

The article then went on to report that Pearson will be challenging Todd Rokita, the current holder of this very important office. The Tribune does a disservice to its readers, however, in failing to report Pearson and Rokita are also up against Mike Kole, the Libertarian candidate.

Furthermore, the Green Party is working to get Bill Stant on the ballot for secretary of state, something The Tribune recently reported.

The Tribune should stop pretending voters have only two choices come election time and tell the whole story every time.

Kathleen PetitjeanSouth Bend

Smear

Recently we faced a difficult and complicated problem which involved two government agencies. For guidance I turned to U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Bristol, and his staff.

We received gracious, effective help that definitely facilitated the solving of my dilemma.

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As far as we're concerned, Chocola is a fine public servant and completely undeserving of the hurtful smear campaign. We also find the weekly anti-Chocola phone calls intrusive and offensive.

Rex and Madeline S. StairsPlymouth

A quote

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

These words are hotly disputed by the religious right (wrong) in this country. The religious wrong insists that separation of church and state is a recent invention of Democrats and other terrible leftists. They call those who dispute them (gasp!) liberals.

Well, folks, the reason the opening words are in quotation marks is that they are not mine. Nor are they recently invented by anyone. They can be found in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (the Barbary pirates thing -- you could look it up). The year 1797 is just 9 years after the ratification of our Constitution. Historians are not sure exactly who wrote these words. Two of the suspects are George Washington and John Adams.

Just who wrote them is not all that important since they were debated in the Senate and ratified by that body. That makes them a pretty good and clear statement on the subject by our Founding Fathers. Their origin (ratified by the Senate and signed into law by Adams) makes them an official description of the intent of our Founding Fathers.

Sorry about that, guys. I guess if people want to live under a faith-based government they'll have to try some place like Iran.

Herb LuckertSouth Bend

Just an arm

With its fawning coverage of late of Gov. Mitch Daniels' Major Moves plan and the Toll Road lease contained therein (complete with fawning cartoon), The Tribune has evidently become Daniels' unofficial propaganda arm for the northern region of his fiefdom.

Neal AustinMishawaka

Big mistake

The Department of Veterans Affairs has compromised my Social Security number and those of millions of other vets. We are told to keep an eye on our credit for problems. That is not acceptable.

If the combination to my garage were compromised, I would change it before it could become a problem. Changing 27 million numbers is better than trying to fix that many possible problems. The wrong person could use my number today, next year, or who knows when. How long should we be looking over our shoulder for a government mistake?